Source Material
by The Illustrious Crackpot
Summary: Being a combination store clerk, phantom thief and Japan's Top Medafighter Supposedly From Outer Space can take its toll on a guy. Luckily, Henry has a creative outlet...FANFICTION.


A/N: A oneshot I wrote two-and-a-half years ago, but didn't realize until just now that I'd actually FINISHED it (I'd spent all this time assuming it was yet another half-written plot bunny). Whoops! I still really like a lot of moments in this, so here you go.

Based on an offhand remark in my other Medabots fic, "Innocence and Ego".

**Source Material**

(The Illustrious Crackpot)

_Ikki took the shuddering girl in his arms, pulling her close to him as she bawled. "It's okay," he reassured her softly, closing his eyes. "I won't ever let that happen."_

_Arika pulled back abruptly, face still streaked with tears as she stared at him in anguished confusion. "But...but..." she faltered, hiccuping slightly. "But after everything I did—"_

"_Shh." He put his finger to her lips and smiled warmly, so warmly that Arika thought her heart was going to break. "None of that matters now. All that matters is _you._"_

"_Ikki..."_

_The thought trailed off into nothingness as he pushed her gently, tenderly, so that she was secured against the wall behind her. With a final moan she let herself relax as Ikki leaned forward, hands grasping hers tightly, and brought his mouth up to—_

"HEY! Can we get some SERVICE around here?!"

Startled by the unexpected shout, Henry jerked violently back from the computer, accidentally capsizing his chair and crashing to a painful heap on the floor. Cursing under his breath, he grasped the edge of the desk and pulled himself up, quickly saving and closing the text document he'd been working on. The _last_ thing he needed was for an irate customer (specifically a little loudmouthed brunette in pink overalls) to storm into the back room and see _that_ little gem on the monitor. That was his. That was private. _No one_ could see that.

Well, except maybe his two hundred and fourteen Internet followers.

"HEN-_RYYYYYYYYYYY!_"

"Geez, I'm _coming!_" snapped the dark-haired young man, yanking the chair upright and whipping on his apron so fast he was practically a blur, already bolting towards the storefront before the knot had even tightened. His hands slammed down onto the counter with a bang, acting as a makeshift brake, and he blew _that one darn stubborn floppy strand of hair_ irritably out of his face as he glared down at his customers. "_What?_"

Ikki and Arika were standing expectantly in front of the counter, though while the fiery-eyed girl practically _reeked_ of impatient fury, the boy looked a lot more sheepish, as if offering a silent apology with his eyes. Metabee and Brass, Henry noted via his peripheral vision, were both looking over displays at opposite ends of the store.

"Well, you don't have to be so _rude!_" Arika huffed angrily, crossing her arms and fixing him with a disapproving look. It was the world's most ridiculous case of the pot calling the kettle black, but Henry took in a deep breath anyway and tried to calm himself down. "We're loyal, frequent, _paying_ customers, and we should be entitled to decent service at all times that the store is open, instead of being _abandoned_"—here her voice started to raise dramatically in volume with every successive word—"while our _storekeeper_ is off _WHO-KNOWS-WHERE_ doing _**WHO-KNOWS-WHAT!**_"

The effort to keep himself calm was working, but unfortumately, the effort to improve his mood was _not_. "I _told_ you I was going on _break_," Henry replied through gritted teeth, feeling a vein start to pulse on his forehead. "I didn't _abandon_ you—sure, I left you guys _unsupervised _for ten minutes, but it's not like you _stole_ anything, right?" He spotted the golden KBT-type Medabot give a sudden start over by the front display window, so he whipped around to meet Metabee's guilty-looking eyes with a fierce glare. "_RIGHT?_"

"Uh, yeah, _sure_ man!" the 'Bot responded in a tone that was far too cheerful to be sincere, hunching up his shoulders and shuffling sideways back to the candy rack like some kind of enormous crab, making sure to keep his back to Henry at all times. "Um...HEY, LOOK! ROKUSHO'S WEARIN' A TUTU!"

Everyone else in the room immediately turned to look in the direction Metabee was pointing (Arika pulling out her camera), but Henry watched out of the corner of his eye as the little 'Bot took his chance to clumsily shove a chocolate bar back into its proper place in the candy display, then start freaking out as he realized that the wrapper was very conspicuously torn open. Thinking quickly, he snatched it back up, bounded over to Ikki before anyone thought to look back, and started tugging impatiently at his Medafighter's sleeve. "Oh, would'ja lookit that, I guess he left—yo Ikki, buy this for me!"

Ikki jumped slightly, then his eyes widened in surprise as he noticed what his Medabot was holding. "Metabee...? Y-you're giving me a chocolate bar?"

"What? _No!_" Metabee jerked it away from him, though not so carelessly that he forgot to hold the wrapper closed with his fingers. "This's for _me!_ I just don't got any money!"

"For _y_—Metabee, you can't even EAT! You're a _Medabot!_"

"BUT IT'LL STILL BE MINE!"

And with that the pair dissolved into an incredibly intense theological debate, exchanging such deeply thought-out arguments as "Oh no you _di'in't!_" and "So _there!_" before the proposal of a motion to adjourn, which was carried out by way of an incredibly manly slap-fight.

Henry rolled his eyes, already forming sentences in his mind. _"Just before their lips were able to make contact, the door slammed open, freezing the pair where they stood. A Hercules Beetle-type Medabot was silhouetted in the doorway, struck dumb with shock. 'Ikki—and ARIKA?' he gasped, quivering with the pain of betrayal. Ikki opened his mouth to speak, but soon felt himself crashing to the ground, staring at the shotgun barrel angled between his eyes..."_

He forced himself to stop there. He couldn't get too far ahead of the story, not when he wouldn't be back in front of his computer until his next break in an hour. So instead he just inconspicuously slipped a pad of paper out from under the cash register and scribbled the words "Metabee interrupts, takes action" at the bottom of a long list of similarly ambiguous story reminders.

"So," he began again, putting down his pencil and turning to Arika. She was still whipping around wildly, pointing her camera in random directions as if hoping that the figment of Metabee's deluded imagination would suddenly hop out and pose for a picture. "What'd you need me out of the back room for? Whatever it is, I can ring it up in a jiffy."

Peeking out from behind the camera for a moment, Arika just grinned innocently up at him. "Oh, I didn't want to _buy_ anything. I just wanted to make sure you were doing your job right."

And then she brought the camera back up, angled at his stunned face, and released the shutter.

...Much as he liked these kids and their Medabots, these were just the kinds of behavior that drove Henry to doing what he did on that computer. It had all started out as simple stress relief—fed up with the Screws strutting around his store like ornery peacocks, insulting his merchandise and treating him with the utmost condescension, he'd stormed off to the back room and whipped out a quick therapeutic moral tale of the gang's epic defeat at the hands of Space Medafighter X the Dispenser of Righteous Justice™. The story had lain untouched on his hard drive for months until he'd rediscovered it while cleaning out some old files. To his surprise, it had read fairly well, save for a few grammatical mistakes that were easily fixed. So, just on a whim, he'd posted the revised document on a Fantasy Robattle Fanfiction website.

And people had liked it.

He'd had no experience with online communities before—really, his only use of the Internet up 'til then had been placing orders at online stores or checking out Medabot-related news articles—so he was surprised to discover that, at the heart of it, his new penname of "BoredClerk896" was really just another mask. (_Not that he was at ALL related in ANY way to the enigmatic and dashing Phantom Renegade and Space Medafighter X, of course_, he reminded himself quickly.) No one online or off knew who he really was—a good thing, frankly, because he hadn't bothered to disguise the Screws' names in his manuscript. As far as anyone knew, BoredClerk896 was a frustrated aspiring novelist who'd decided to apply his talents to his passion for Medabots and Medafighting...and, just like his other masks (_Not that he_...oh, whatever), parts of that identity started to manifest in Henry's normal everyday self. Now he saw potential storylines in everything; the latest chapter of "Rosebuds And Paper Planes" aside, this battle still raging between Ikki and Metabee over the chocolate bar could make for an amusing drabble exploring the complexity of their platonic relationship, while Brass's sitting quietly at a nearby stool could evoke a lengthy in-depth "personal monologue" piece about life from her unique and often unheard point of view. Thanks to trains of thought like these, pretty soon BoredClerk896 had graduated from writing mere sports-style imaginary Robattle matchups to more character-driven situational pieces, which had even been well-received by self-proclaimed literary critics or professional authors (though it was hard to tell if they really _were_ what they claimed to be, this being the Internet and all). Of course, with more personal and potentially libelous stories like these, Henry had to be careful to alter the names—mainly by changing the family names and spelling the given names with different kanji—and add disclaimers at the beginning of each post insisting that his characters were _inspired_ by real individuals while not being _representative_ of them, yadda yadda yadda. Of course he could've used the old "all resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental" schtick, but even though Henry basically _survived_ on being duplicitous, he didn't want to _lie_.

"Stop _arguing!_ What's so important about this _anyway?_"

"IT'S NEAR AN' DEAR TO MY HEART, OKAY?"

"More like near and dear to my _wallet!_"

"Oh, SHUT _UP_, guys!" shouted Arika, exasperated, as she finally stopped snapping photos and just forcibly separated boy from 'Bot. "Come on, Ikki, just buy him the stupid _chocolate_ already!"

The topknotted boy reeled back in surprise. "_What?_" he demanded, his voice eerily matching the pitch his Medabot always used for that exclamation. (Henry quickly jotted that down for future reference.) "But...but Arika, he doesn't _need_ it!"

"SEZ _YOU!_" Metabee snapped, shaking his fist.

Arika ignored him. "Like _you'd_ 'need' any of the random junk you'd buy for _yourself_ with that money? Like the other day when I saw you with that 'Stockholm Fire' CD—"

"That's _different!_" Ikki flushed bright red at this accusation, his skin tone nearly disappearing against his shirt. "I actually have the ability to _use_ the things I buy! Metabee doesn't even _have a mouth!_"

"Well, _technically_—" Henry started, preparing to enter "arrogant lecture mode", but he was abruptly cut off by the one individual he'd _least_ expected.

"Technically not," Brass remarked with spotlight-grabbing quietness, her right hand half-raised as if she was in school. "At least not for the function you're describing. But older models like Metabee have very thin slits in the mouth area to provide an outlet for the voicebox speakers, so if he truly desired, he probably _could_ grate the chocolate through that. Though that would really only serve to create obstructions for his internal gears as opposed to any more practical purpose."

As the others protested the usefulness of this insight (though much more civilly than before), Henry just hung his head and sighed. A plot bunny scampered unexpectedly through his brain. _"Suddenly the cashier leapt fully onto the counter, startling the combatants into silence. 'FOOLS!' he bellowed—his voice seemed unusually deep and powerful, they noticed—and he ripped off his apron to reveal...a black tuxedo and long flowing cape! There were gasps all around. 'Yes, it is _I!_' boomed the no-longer-so-insignificant nineteen-year-old, thrusting on a mask and top hat. 'Little did you know that this seemingly harmless, folksy, yet mysteriously good-looking clerk was in actuality THE PHANTOM RENEGADE, influencing all of your petty actions by way of this mortal guise!' Another mighty gasp. 'YES! I, "Henry the HopMart Guy", am really THE WORLD'S GREATEST AND MOST DARING GENTLEMAN THIEF, THE NUMBER ONE MEDAFIGHTER IN ALL OF JAPAN, FORMER CHILD PRODIGY and also, while you were standing here having your pointless argument, I took some time out of my schedule and ENDED WORLD HUNGER!' "_

Nah—too close to certain personal secrets for him to ever be able to publish _that_ on the FRF Fansite. With _his_ luck, even if he posted it as a self-proclaimed "Humorous Parody", it'd cause the Select Corps to start shaking down every convenience store clerk in the area, and _then_ where would he be? (Though that wouldn't necessarily stop him from typing it up for his own enjoyment.)

But at least being the "invisible nobody" had its advantages. At any rate, it got him a front-row seat to all kinds of action, and if any of his other personas were to make use of these observations, none of them would ever think to trace it back to _him_.

"Hey, don't be so hard on her!" Metabee protested, interrupting Henry's internal monologue, and ducked protectively in front of Brass. "Maybe that wasn't the most _useful_ thing Brass coulda' said right then, but at least she's tryin' ta' be _reasonable!_"

Brass cocked her head to the side, looking confused and more than a little dubious. "Um...thank you...?"

The hesitant tone worked like an alarm bell on Metabee, and he whirled irritably on the Sailor-type 'Bot just as quickly as he'd jumped to her defense. "Hey, whaddayou mean by that _question mark?_ I'm _testifyin'_ for you, here! Don't go _insultin'_ me!"

Startled, Brass held both hands out in front of her. "Um, Metabee..."

"_Metabee?_" Ikki demanded incredulously, lost for words over his Medabot's inexplicable behavior. Arika, however, was not so easily cowed.

"HEY! LEAVE BRASS _ALONE!_" she shouted, roughly grabbing Metabee by the arm and yanking him away. "SHE NEVER DID _ANYTHING_ TO YOU!"

Ikki almost jumped into the air from shock. "Arika, _no!_" His panicked words and frantic gestures were almost lost amidst the angry stream of beetle-like noises emanating from the flailing Metabee. "Look, Metabee's sorry, okay? He didn't mean anything by it!"

"_GkkGkkGkk_—WHADDAYA _MEAN_ I DIDN'T? YOU SAYIN' I CAN'T _DEFEND_ MYSELF?"

"No, no, it's all right..." Brass insisted, but was summarily drowned out.

Now _there_ was a romantic comedy couple if ever there was one, Henry thought with a sardonic smile. Ikki and Arika came close, but there was still too much tenderness and sensitivity between them, as well as fiery tempers all-too-evenly matched for any humorous love story to be more than just an extended shouting match. On the other hand, Brass had no temper and Metabee was about as sensitive as a rock. Sure, he could probably slip in a reference in "Rosebuds"—_"Both Medabots sat quietly side by side, comforted by the thought that, even if both had been pushed a little further away by their respective Medafighters, at least they'd be seeing a lot more of each other"_—but they really belonged in something silly and absurd and absolutely sweet. Something like that "Ninja World" escapade he'd heard the kids talking about; like, Metabee spends the entire first half bragging about his skills and is then floored by Brass's effortless defeat of some super-intense opponent, or some kind of reverse damsel-in-distress where only Brass is able to free Metabee from the ridiculous clutches of the Rubberobo Gang. Henry wrote down both ideas along with a few snippets of sample dialogue. Short pieces like _those_ he could bang out in a few hours if he felt like it, so it probably wouldn't hurt to start one up after finishing up the current chapters of his ongoing stories.

"All right, Ikki, that's _enough!_ Metabee can't treat my poor little Brass that way and get away with it, so just _lemme at 'im!_"

"Er, Miss Arika..."

"Arika, you're way overreacting! Now stop _hitting_ me! I'm not gonna just let go of you so you can start hitting Metabee!"

"Aw, Ikki, that's so _sweet_. I always wanted to have a Medafighter who _WOULDN'T LET ME FIGHT MY OWN BATTLES!_"

"Hey, kids, no roughhousing in my store!" Henry felt obliged to call out, having gathered more than enough material from these shenanigans. This time they actually turned around and paid attention—well, Arika as much as she was able against Ikki's surprisingly strong restraining hold—but only for a split second, as a pink limousine decided to pick that exact moment to pull up outside with a sophisticated _purr_, instantly snapping everyone's gaze to the window.

" '_Maybe I _would_ have taken you under my wing and taught you _all_ of my deepest darkest most powerful Robattling secrets,' remarked Space Medafighter X, crossing his arms as the children gaped with astonishment and dawning dread, 'if you had been a little more considerate of my feelings',"_ Henry scrawled irritably, then crossed it out. Though not so intensely that he wasn't still able to read it.

"It's _Karin!_" gushed Ikki, shoving Arika away so forcefully that she fell right into Metabee, sending both of them (and the chocolate) tumbling to the floor. Brass immediately leapt off her stool to help up the furious pair, but Ikki paid no attention, hurrying over to the front door with the world's most starry-eyed expression on his face. "_Kaaaaariiiiiiiiiiin..._"

As if on cue, the door swung delicately open and the little red-haired girl stepped into the shop, grinning that sweet little grin of hers. The place almost seemed to brighten with her radiance, and one could almost hear an angelic chorus in the background.

"Oh, hello, Ikki," Karin greeted politely, tilting her head to the side as she approached. "I was hoping you'd be here."

Ikki looked about ready to melt into the floor. "Heh...m-me too..." he stammered, snapping embarrassedly to attention as he amended, "um, I mean, about _you!_ N-not like I was, uh, hoping that _I'd_ be here, uh, well..."

Karin graciously directed her attention past the blushing boy, her smile widening as she acknowledged the other occupants of the room. Henry gave a reflexive half-wave, and she nodded courteously to him (_finally_ someone validating his existence, if only for a split second) before moving on to say hello to Arika and the Medabots. She didn't seem to notice the threat in the angry death glare of doom Arika gave her in return, but then again, that was Karin for you.

"Come on, Karin, let's get what we came for and hurry out," droned a significantly nastier voice from the doorway. Of course it was Kouji, gratuitously flipping his hair back (probably just so it would catch the light, Henry mused) as he narrowed his eyes disdainfully at his surroundings.

Karin's face instinctively fell into a pout, which frankly looked so horrendously adorable on her that Henry had to fight hard to keep his face from burning bright red. Heaven only knew what Arika would say if she saw _him_ like that. "Aw, but _Kouji_, don't you want to _visit_ with our _friends?_"

The rich boy jumped, stuck for words—_Placate or sneer, placate or sneer, what'cha gonna do little boy?_—but was preempted by Ikki, who, sensing a rare opportunity, immediately sprang up beside Karin and laced his arm through hers. "_See_, Kouji? Karin _liiiiiiiiiiiiikes_ us," Ikki proclaimed smugly, leering into his rival's appalled face.

Karin, for her part, had seemed surprised at Ikki's intitial touch, but soon enough relaxed into her usual impossibly sweet little smile.

Metabee snorted in amusement.

Whereas Arika was spitting like a cobra.

As Kouji spluttered out a comeback, prompting an awkwardly enraged back-and-forth between the two boys (Ikki for once with the advantage), Henry suddenly realized that he had completely neglected this triangle in his story. Well, there was that one confrontation in chapter three, he reminded himself, when Ikki and Kouji Robattled each other, and then Arika punched Kouji out during a fateful moment, which ticked Ikki off because he wanted a fair non-punching fight and Arika got upset because she was just trying to help, and Brass was there, and then it looked like Arika wrote a nasty exposé about Ikki in the school newspaper but it was really the Screws messing with the articles, so Ikki and Arika were still mad at each other, and Karin took Arika out shopping to calm her down, and then Arika punched _her_ out..._yeah_. But other than that he had _nothing_, which was unfortunate, given the hilarious nature of the whole matter. _I mean, come ON, Ikki, she and Kouji are "childhood friends", there's no way they're NOT ending up together...haven't you watched ANY anime?_ Maybe after the current chapter had ended, he could write something where Ikki and Karin met up under some circumstances, and Arika got mad about it, and tried to make Ikki jealous by pretending to be with Kouji, just to jumble up the whole mess again or someth—

"Heyyyyyyyyy..._Hikaru!_"

The shock of being unexpectedly addressed—especially by his _real name_—sent Henry crashing backwards, actually falling flat on his back behind the counter. Not that anyone _noticed_, of course, he reflected bitterly—everyone else was too focused on the Karin-centric drama, though Brass to her credit _did_ peer over the top of the counter to see if he was all right (he was really going to have to write something really nice for that 'Bot one of these days). Gritting his teeth against his back pain, he managed to haul himself back to his feet, shooting an accusing glare at the utterer of the startling phrase—and jerking backwards once again when he realized that those shockingly reflective sunglasses were little more than two inches away from his face.

"How's'it goin', Hikaru ol' boy?" slurred Dr. Aki as an excessively wide grin stretched sprawlingly out to his ears. The scientist was wobbling a bit, forced to keep his hands firmly planted on the counter in order to remain fully upright, and Henry noticed with horror the empty wine glass entwined between the Doctor's fingers. _Oh dear lord._ "Steal any more a' those _mare reddals_?"

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!" Henry sputtered loudly, though Brass was the only one paying any attention to the conversation ("Well Karin came here specifically to see ME—er, US!" "She did not! She just came to buy Medaparts!" "It's so cute how well you two get along!" "Heh heh!" "GRRRRRRR..."). _Stupid horrible awful old man! I hate you! I hate you! STOP TRYING TO RUIN MY LIFE!_

Forget "Rosebuds And Paper Planes"—the _instant_ he got on break, he was going to update "Dr. Aki VS The Sassy Intern From Hell". Who _cared _about those know-nothing flamers who accused him of libelous character bashing, or the even creepier ones who accused "Miss Hikari Tagama" of being a pseudo-Mary Sue and denounced the whole story as OCshipping (even though it was QUITE BLATANTLY THE EXACT OPPOSITE)? When you worked with Dr. Aki on a regular basis, _you needed your damn outlet_.

"Aw, c'_mon_, Hika-_channnnnnnnn_, EVERYONE knows you're the Phantom MMMFGKMPDFGOJJLGMF!"

Taking advantage of how far forward the Doctor had been leaning in his attempts to poke Henry, the clerk slapped a hand over the old man's mouth, quickly adding his other hand on top as Dr. Aki attempted vigorously to wriggle free. "HA HA HA, _VERY FUNNY DOCTOR!_" Henry went on in a disarmingly loud voice, feeling that ol' familiar panic welling up. _Of course_ it's the _one guy_ who keeps _all the world's most dark and important secrets_ who _CAN'T HOLD THEM IN AFTER HE'S HAD ONE LOUSY DRINK!_

"Oh, dear," interjected Karin worriedly, instantly silencing the enormous melee that had been raging around her. "Is Uncle Aki causing you any trouble, Henry?"

Though painfully aware of how bizarre it looked (_so who's going to write a fanfiction about THIS?_ he momentarily wondered), Henry kept both hands firmly over the struggling inventor's mouth. "N-nothing's the matter!" he flustered, pressing slightly harder as Dr. Aki started some clumsy attempts to push his arms away. "I'm just, um—I gave him some free cough drops! Y'know, 'cus his throat's always so...y'know?"

The little redheaded girl brightened instantly. "How _thoughtful!_ Thank you so much, Henry!"

Henry was grinning the crazy grin of desperation when Arika suddenly let loose a snicker. "Well, well, would you look at _that_," she intoned wickedly, eyes narrow. "I guess Ikki and Kouji _both_ lose to the _HOPMART CLERK._"

And suddenly the temperature in the room shot up by approximately one million degrees.

"Well, I think we've taken up enough of your time," Karin remarked sweetly, completely oblivious to both the murderous glares of her two admirers as well as the abject terror of the clerk their rage was directed at. Gently taking her uncle by the arm, she removed Dr. Aki from Henry's death grip—"HE'SH NOT WHO HE SEZ HE IS, HE'SH AN _ALIEN FR'M OUTER SHPACE!_" exclaimed the Doctor with an even more pronounced slur than before—and led him to the door. Like a well-trained dog, Kouji fell into step instantly, making an excessively threatening gesture at Henry as he passed. The clerk shivered.

After a petite bow from Karin, a haughty snort from Kouji, and some tone-deaf warbling from Dr. Aki, the limo started up noiselessly and was gone.

"_I GUESS WE BETTER BE GOING_," stated Ikki in a dead monotone, teeth clenched and eyes pointedly avoiding Henry. Metabee started to protest, but Ikki just grabbed his arm forcefully and jerked him along as he stomped out the door. Arika just skipped behind gleefully—_revenge in real life must be _sooooooo_ sweet_, Henry mused defeatedly—while Brass trailed along like a shadow. Before turning the corner, however, Arika took the time to turn back and make obnoxious kissing noises at Henry, giggling and running off as he started to burn with embarrassment and rage.

Directly afterwards, Henry disappeared into the back room and did not emerge for another two hours. During which time the Screws took it upon themselves to duck in and shoplift some choice Medaparts. Which later would prompt another horribly scathing oneshot, but that's a story for another day.

**~the end~**


End file.
